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Las Vegas Tournament

The Bats1.com Sox will be fielding a squad for the Las Vegas Memorial Day Tourney. To pay via PayPal, visit our Finance page.

About the Sox 38a Tourney Team

The genesis of the Sox Tourney team was the long drive home from the 2004 Memorial Day Wood Bat tournament in Las Vegas. The team's "founding fathers," Bob Ambrose, Jim McGaha, and Fernando "Mo" Portillo, had played with a 38a team from Ventura. We all had a great time and decided "wouldn't it be awesome to put together a team of our own for the next year's tourney". Somehow it got decided that I would be in charge. Must have been the tequila.

Fast forward to Oct. 2004: When the SDABL 28a Black Sox got a sponsorship from a wood bat manufacturer, BuyWoodBats.com, it seemed like a natural fit to put together the team for the Holly"Wood" Bat Tournament as well as the Memorial Day Tourney in Vegas. I ran it by the other "founding fathers" and they were in. Then I made a few calls and sent a few emails.

The response has been overwhelming. All but two players I extended invitations to accepted immediately. The other two were already committed to other teams but said they wanted to play Vegas, if spots opened up. Additionally, Mo Padillo and Art Garcia knew other good players who might be interested. They accepted and in just a couple of days, the Sox had a roster. We have 12-committed players, all from the SDABL 28a division by invitation only. I may sign one more player, just to be safe, but that's it.

HollyWood Bat Schedule/Results:

Sat 1/15 8:00 am Alta Loma HS vs. Sacramento Pirates. Loss: 4-2
Sat 1/15 3:30 pm Heritage Park vs. Denver Bears. Win: 15-6
Sun 1/16 11:00 am Montclair HS vs. SD Black Sox. Loss: 8-1
Sun 1/16 2:00 pm Chino Hills HS vs. Sacramento Pirates. Loss 8-3

Tournament Recap

As a brand new (rookie) team playing in the tough 38a division, we finished the tournament 1-3 and were competitive in all but one game, vs. the Black Sox. We played two tough games vs. the 3-1 Pirates and were just a couple of hits away from breaking the second game open in the early innings when we left runners at 2nd and 3rd base each of the first four innings.

Overall, we got good pitching. Gus Valdez pitched his heart out in the first game, a 4-2 loss, only allowing one earned run in the complete game. Jim McGaha got the win in the second game with a strong 5-inning performance. Todd Hodges was outstanding in two long relief stints and Bob Ambrose gave us a strong start in the final game.

Team Leaders

Bob led the team in both batting average and on-base percentage, hitting an even .500 and getting on base an even .600. Gus did what a good leadoff hitter does, getting on base at a .563 clip. Todd Hodges hit the ball hard all weekend and Gary Pierce closed strongly with a 3/5 (.600) final day finish, despite catching both legs of the double header. Incidentally Mo, this means you owe me $20 (Bob had a .577 oba the second day) on our wager on who would have the highest 2nd day On-Base Average. Both ponies represented, mine just ran a little stronger.

Every player got at least one hit for the tourney, although Carlos Estrella kept us waiting until the last minute before roping a double to the right-center fence. (Editor's note: a review of the scorebook revealed that it was in fact, Carlos' second hit. A noteworthy blast nonetheless).

Team Batting Average: .277
Team On-Base Average: .351

Most Valuable Player

Our tournment Most Valuable Player was Bob Ambrose, as unanamomously selected by the team founding fathers: Myself, Jim M., Mo Portillo, and Bob (who abstained from voting) by virtue of his hitting, pitching, and outstanding defense at shortstop. Even though it was a relatively easy choice, there was some pretty tough competition, with both Gus Valdez and Todd Hodges earning honorable mention, giving us excellent pitching and hitting also.

To commemorate the great effort, I'll see if I can get another fungo bat or something for Bob from our sponsor.

Closing Thoughts

I just wanted to say thanks to everybody for making this an enjoyable weekend - you are a bunch of great guys and good ballplayers. Special thanks to Jim McGaha, who brought almost half the team and way more than half the gear to the games. Thanks to Bob Ambrose for supplying the jerseys, offense, defense, pitching, and for keeping track of my wallet, cell phone, score book, etc., all weekend. Thanks to Art Garcia for coordinating with our (former) sponsor and bringing our bats up to LA. Finally, thanks to Fernando "Mo" Portillo for providing comic relief on and off the field. If you haven't caught Mo's act in Vegas, you should. That's all I can say about that right now.

Even though we didn't win as much as we would have liked, we competed well at the top level of 38+ ball. Nothing for a first time team to hang its head over. I am already looking forward to putting it together again Memorial Day in Vegas.

Dan Darrin
January 17, 2005

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